


Pervasive Quietness

by ponderinfrustration



Series: Flashes Unknown, Unseen [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emptiness in Baker Street, Gen, Interstitial, Post-The Sign of Three, Pre-His Last Vow, Scene unseen, season/series 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hollowness left in Baker Street seeps into everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pervasive Quietness

Baker Street is too quiet without him. Hollow, empty, filled with memories. (Sentiment.)I should be relieved, all of this room to think without anything getting underfoot. Without ridiculous programmes on the television and being made to eat and having designated space in the refrigerator for body parts. (He would really hate the eyes. Would complain about them staring at him or other such nonsense, even though they’re clearly not connected to the optical nerve and equally clearly dead. Illogical.) Alone protects me. Has always protected me, a shield from the monotony and stupidity of the outside world. (It doesn’t anymore. Feels hollow and empty, just like the flat. Just like everything else.)

Why can’t people just be honest and call it a sex holiday? That’s all it amounts to, really. (Though where he is concerned, I don’t like thinking about him in that way. Makes me shiver. It feels odd, unnatural. Can’t maintain my detachment. Ridiculous sentiment.)

I’ve moved his chair. Having it sitting there empty just made everything feel emptier. Let it be empty in his empty room. It has no place down here now. Plus, I’ve always wanted a clear view of the kitchen. (Not really. Lying about these things isn’t helping, but neither is being honest so what does anything matter?)

I can’t resent her, because she’s good for him. She helped him when I couldn’t. For some reason, she doesn’t complain when I pull him away on cases, though there is time for that yet. Yet, I can’t help but wonder, sometimes. If I hadn’t had to leave, would he be married now? It’s a question I can’t answer. Insufficient data. (Maybe I just don’t want to answer it. Though how I wish everything could be as it was before, sometimes. Pointless waste of time. Sentiment, again.)

Everything has to change now, anyway. The baby on the way ensures that. He’ll feel compelled to spend more time with her, make it all easier during the pregnancy. Then the child will be born, and there’ll be even less time for cases, for all of this. He’ll be busy with nappies, and night-time feeds and being there to see the child grow up, doing all of those paternal things that everyone drones about. (They were never going to apply to me, anyway.) And slowly, gradually, all of this will fade away for him, into the realm of things that he used to do, stories to tell the child. Not a practical reality.

They won’t need me around. They won’t want me around, anyway. I’d only be a bad influence, with explosions and experiments and the constant threat of danger.

Better to start the separation now. More logical, will hurt less in the long run. (It used to be so easy to divorce myself from feeling. Not anymore.)

Still, it’s not the baby’s fault. It’s not anybody’s fault, except perhaps my own for getting attached. A chemical defect that I fought to avoid but somehow succumbed to in the end.

(Far too easy to think now, really, in the midst of this cold hollowness.)


End file.
